In what sense can Ayn Jalut be viewed as a decisive engagement?

James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips In What Sense Can Ayn Jalut be Viewed as a Decisive Engagement? Prior to the work of Peter Jackson, a scholarly consensus had developed arguing that the Battle of Ayn Jalut represented a truly decisive event in the history of the Near East. It has been argued that the Mongol incursion into Syria was a golden opportunity for the Franks to ally themselves with a powerful entity, seemingly amiable towards those of the Christian faith, against their age old Saracen foe in the Near East. In not doing so, they brought about their own downfall just a few decades later.1 In other words, this definitively marked the beginning of the end for the Franks in the Holy Land. It has also been suggested that the Mamluk victory at Ayn Jalut signalled the inevitable ascendancy of the Sultanate based in Cairo and that victory over the previously ‘invincible’ Mongol hordes confirmed the Mamluks as unquestionable rulers of the region. As such, it has also been argued that their absolute defeat at the battle brought about an end to their ambitions in the Near East and was critical in undermining the grand imperial ideology which had contributed to their self-assured conquests.2 However, such arguments, which often fail to consider the battle in its wider context, have been challenged by scholars such as Jackson and Amitai-Press. In this paper, I shall demonstrate the inaccuracy of a number of these theories and consider some more recent studies on the Battle of The Spring of Goliath. ‘A Lost Opportunity’ Rene Grousset was the chief proponent of the theory of a ‘missed opportunity’ for the Franks and condemned their decision to afford free passage to the Mamluks past Acre, allowing them to gain an advantageous position at Ayn Jalut.3 He even framed Hulegu’s expedition in terms of ‘une croisade nestorienne’. He interpreted the Nestorian beliefs of certain Mongol women of the expedition, as well as the presence of Nestorian advisors among the Mongol Khans’ inner circles, as conclusive evidence of the pervasiveness of such beliefs.4 Fundamental to the idea of a potential FrankishMongol alliance are the assumptions that the Mongols were well disposed towards the Latin states, that the Mongols represented a natural ally against the dominant Muslim powers and that 1 Rene Grousset, Histoire des croisades et du royaume franc de Jerusalem, vol iii (Paris, 1936). Paul Thorau, ‘The Battle of Ayn Jalut: A Re-examination’, Crusade and Settlement: Papers read at the First Conference of the Society for the Study of Crusades and the Latin East and presented to R.C. Smail, ed. Raymond C. Smail and Peter Edbury (Cardiff: University College Cardiff Press, 1985), pp. 236-241; On Mongol readiness to court the members of other religions see Denise Aigle, ‘The Letters of Eljigidei, Hulegu, and Abaqa: Mongol Overtures or Christian Ventriloquism’, Inner Asia, 7 (2005), pp. 143-162. 3 Grousset, Histoire des croisades. 4 For the respect shown by the Mongols to Nestorian Christians and the impression this made on the Franciscan Missionary William of Rubruck see Jackson, Peter and Morgan, David ed. and trans. The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Mongke, 1253-1255 (Cambridge: Hackett, 2009), pp. 121-125. 2 James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips cooperation on equal terms was a realistic possibility.5 At their most charitable, scholars have observed the incapacity of the Franks to ‘discern an objective reality, namely that a Mongol alliance was theirs for the taking and offered the sole hope of survival’, which some of them state was understandable in the circumstances.6 There are three important elements to the ‘lost opportunity theory’ which must be considered. Firstly, Eljigidei’s embassy, received in December 1248 by Louis IX on Cyprus, has been interpreted as evidence for the receptiveness of the Mongols to offers of an alliance against the Muslim powers of the Near East. The sentiments of Eljigidei’s letter are more amicable than those seen in the threats and warnings sent to other European leaders, seen clearly, for example, in Baiju’s ultimatum to Innocent IV in 1247; ‘…if you wish to keep your land, you must come to us in person and thence go on to him [the Khan]. If you don’t, we know not what will happen, only God knows’.7 Indeed, these negotiations aroused great optimism in Western Europe, with writers such as Matthew of Paris affording them some discussion. However, Jackson emphasizes the observation of Simon of St. Quentin that Eljigidei’s real aim was to draw the crusader army away from Syria and thereby sap the strength of both the Crusader and Egyptian armies in preparation for the next wave of the westward Mongol advance.8 Such aims are described by Ibn-Wasil, who states that the Mongols sought to cut off Egyptian assistance to the Franks, and Rashid al-Din, who states, although in highly poetic terms, that Baiju was commanded by Hulegu to ‘advance as far as the coasts of the sea, and wrest those countries from the hands of the children of France and England’.9. Denise Aigle has noted the conformity of Guyuk’s letter to the general rules of construction for Mongol letters with references to God and the Great Khan, the concept of power as viewed by the Mongols and their divine mandate to rule over the earth; ‘It is clear that this theocratic conception of the world order could not readily be understood by the Latin West, especially when coming from a pagan Prince’.10 Guyuk is referred to as rex terrae whilst Louis is referred to as rex magnificus, indicating how Guyuk acknowledged the king’s power but ultimately viewed himself as superior to him. This relative amicability of the Mongol embassy on Cyprus was later overstated by Armenian sources with highly propagandistic agendas, as will be discussed shortly. Claude Cahen, La Syrie du Nord a l’epoque des Croisades et de la principaute franque d’Antioche (Paris, 1940), p. 708; Runciman, Crusades, iii, 311; Jean Richard, Le Royaume latin de Jerusalem (Paris, 1953), pp. 308-9 ‘immense erreur’ also La Papaute et les Missions d’Orient au Moyen Age (Rome, 1977, Collection de l’Ecole Francaise de Rome, 33), p. 100 assumes Mongol intentions in Syria are less imperial than in eastern Europe. 6 Peter Jackson, ‘The Crisis in the Holy Land in 1260’, The English Historical Review, 95 (1980), p. 483. 7 Cited by John Saunders, The History of the Mongol Conquests (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), p. 96. 8 Jackson, ‘The Crisis in the Holy Land’, p. 483. 9 Ibid, p. 496. 10 Aigle, ‘The Letters of Eljigidei, Hulegu, and Abaqa’, p. 147. 5 James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips The second element in the ‘missed opportunity theory’ is the negotiations between the Mongols and the West in the years after the Battle of Ayn Jalut. It was long believed that Urban IV’s letter to Hulegu dated from 1260, the battle taking place this very year. However, Richard has shown how both the Mongol mission and Urban’s response can be dated no earlier than 1263.11 Urban’s letter is significant in that it expresses great pleasure at Hulegu’s proclaimed intent to return Jerusalem and the holy places into Christian hands, though the Pope laments the inability of western Christendom to send aid. This does not wholly undermine the possibility of Mongol openness to a Christian alliance in 1260. However, the outbreak of war within the Mongol Empire in 1261 and the alliance made between the Mamluks and the Islamic Golden Horde, led by Hulegu’s enemy Berke Khan, meant that there would have been an enhanced readiness to court the Franks and receive aid in a war on two fronts. Indeed, the need to play down claims to world domination and negotiate with outside powers on more equal terms, and in particular to court the powers of western Europe, are symptoms of the dissolution of the Mongol Empire, discussed at length in another excellent paper by Jackson.12 Even so, the dating of Urban’s letter renders such considerations invalid. The final element in this theory is the nature of the sources dating from later periods which describe the events culminating in the Battle of Ayn Jalut. The La Flor de Estoires de la Terre d’Orient (1307) of the Armenian Het’um of Gorigos, a major piece of political propaganda masquerading as an objective historical survey of the East, was central for Grousset in formulating his ideas. Het’um’s aim was to persuade the powers of the west to launch an expedition to the east against the Mamluks who threatened his own homeland with aid from both the Armenians and the Mongols of Iran. He laments how the Christians had already missed a valuable opportunity for co-operation when Hulegu had stated his intention to restore the Holy Land to Christian hands once he had defeated the Muslims. When he departed for the quriltai on hearing of his brother’s death, he ordered that ‘all the lands which had belonged to the Christians should be returned to them’. It was even the case that Kitbogha ‘was labouring to recover the Holy Land when the Devil sowed a great discord between him and the Christians of Sidon’. Het’um cites the disappearance of Mongol ‘good will’ as being purely the work of the Franks themselves in engaging in this skirmish outside Sidon, since which ‘the Tartars have ceased to trust the Christians of Syria and the Christians the Tartars’. Het’um’s aim of emphasizing intrinsic Mongol goodwill to Christians is further pursued in his account of the journey of the Armenian King Het’um I to the Mongol capital at Qaraqorum in 1254, where he made seven requests and all were granted. One of these was the baptism of himself and his people and another was the wresting of the Holy Land from Muslim powers and its return to Christian Richard, ‘Le debut des relations entre la Papaute et les Mongols de Perse’, Journal Asiatique, ccxxxvii (1949), p. 294. 12 Peter Jackson, ‘The Dissolution of the Mongol Empire’, Central Asiatic Journal, 32 (1978), pp. 186-243. 11 James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips hands. With none of this being documented in the contemporary Armenian historian Kirakos of Gantsag’s writings, it must be discarded as propagandistic fantasy. As Jackson comments, ‘He is trying…to lay a ghost’.13 Such bias is also evident in other Armenian and Frankish sources. For example, the Gestes des Chiprois claims that Kit-buqa was accompanied into Damascus by both King Het’um and Bohemond VI of Antioch, with Bohemond converting a mosque into a church and desecrating numerous Muslim places of worship. His acceptance of Mongol overlordship is certain and his entry into Damascus alongside King Het’um is probable. However, the claims of Bohemond laying waste to mosques in Damascus are undermined by the absence of such observations from Baybars’ biography (a work which would have grasped with both hands the chance to vilify a Frankish enemy of the mujahideen Baybars). A contemporary of Het’um, Grigor of Akner even describes how Hulegu entered Jerusalem and prostrated himself before the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This can only be considered as further Armenian exaggeration. As Jackson succinctly comments, contemporary Frankish sources ‘give absolutely no indication that the Mongols were prepared to act as the Heaven-sent auxiliaries against Islam that they were to have become half a century later’.14 The Mongols were seen as hostile, and Gui de Bainsville, Preceptor of the Temple, saw them as constituting no lesser a threat to Christendom in Outremer than to Islam and even predicted the annihilation of the Latin states. Such a view was widely held and ‘nothing, in all this time [prior to Ayn Jalut], had indicated that the newcomers might serve as deliverers or allies’.15 Thomas Agni di Lentino, Papal Legate and Bishop of Bethlehem perhaps best reflects contemporary Frankish fear and trepidation concerning the incoming Mongols; ‘See, then, if the name of the Tartars is in keeping with their actions, or because they send you down to Hell, or because they are in total agreement with Hell’s accomplices, or else if it is derived from the Greek word tartasin meaning shake with horror and fear. Without doubt they are horrible and fearsome’16 Whilst the absence of any sort of amicable overtures towards the Franks from the Mongols is clear, the influence of other factors in motivating the crusaders’ desire to remain neutral in the MamlukMongol conflict must be considered. Simple geopolitics dictated that the Franks needed to be wary of declaring themselves as Mongol sympathisers at an early stage. Cairo lay a mere 600km away from Acre whilst Tabriz, the Mongol centre of operations in Iran, was over three times that distance Jackson, ‘The Crisis in the Holy Land’, p. 486. Ibid, p. 487. 15 Ibid, p. 490. 16 Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate, ed. and trans. Letters from the East: Crusaders, Pilgrims and Settlers in the th th 12 -13 Centuries (London: Ashgate, 2013), p. 155. 13 14 James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips from the largest city of the Crusader States. The proximity of the Mamluk Sultanate, as well as its intrinsic instability, when weighed against the proverbial invincibility of the Mongol forces meant that it would have been unwise for the Franks to commit to either side. Indeed, contemporary accounts of the negotiations held at Acre between Qutuz and the Franks reveal this desire on the part of the latter to remain neutral in the conflict. Frankish sources state that Qutuz both requested passage through crusader territory and appealed for military aid against the Mongols. On the other hand, Muslim sources state that an offer of alliance was extended by the Franks but Qutuz rejected it, stating that if a single Frankish soldier followed as hostile, he would return and massacre the inhabitants of Acre. Jackson has concluded that it may be said for certain that Qutuz remained at Acre for three days, during which time he was furnished with provisions. He states that, ‘the total silence of almost all the early Muslim writers, and the laconic account of Ibn ‘Abd al-Zahir, who was among the party that actually entered Acre, suggest, in fact, that it was the sultan who first requested the Franks’ assistance and that they refused, while agreeing to remain neutral’.17 The insistence of the Muslim writers on Qutuz’s primacy in the negotiations is a reflection of their desire to present him as the saviour of Islam and as the legitimate claimant to the Sultanate, standing as dominant against his Frankish neighbours. Further considerations prevented the Franks from offering terms of alliance to the Mongols. The ongoing War of St Sabas had divided the merchants and nobility, as well as the military orders. This resulted in an even greater dearth of manpower than usual from the Crusader States in an hour of great need, as well as in the degradation of many fortifications. The infighting of the merchants and the decision taken by many to return to their home cities also resulted in an absence of ready cash with which to hire mercenaries or placate a threatening enemy. The decision to assist either the Mongols or the Mamluks would have cost Frankish lives, with the victors potentially capitalising on the subsequently weakened Crusader States. Co-operation with the Mongols would also have attracted vehement condemnation from fellow Christians in the East. As has been seen, reports back to Western Europe from a number of authorities recorded their disquiet over the approach of the deceitful Mongols. Bohemond VI of Antioch, who submitted to Mongol overlordship in early 1260, had received great scorn from the Patriarch of Jerusalem and, as a result of the reinstatement of the Greek Patriarch in Antioch (by Mongol orders), received a sentence of excommunication. Thus, the Frankish decision to adopt a policy of tertius gaudens and remain neutral in a conflict between their time-honoured enemy and a still largely unknown pagan entity was mindful and astute. It is only Baybars’ subsequent violent usurpation of Qutuz and rapid ascendancy and the Mongol absence 17 Jackson, ‘The Crisis in the Holy Land’, p. 503. James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips from Syria for two decades which have allowed Grousset et al. to condemn the Franks as passive and short-sighted. None of this could have possibly been foreseen in March 1260. Another factor which may have come into play when the Franks were considering how to negotiate with Qutuz at Acre was the positive estimation of their strength by the Mongols, something of which they were well aware. Zakariyya al-Qazwini, a cosmographer writing in Hulegu’s Iran, wrote; ‘The land of the Franks: a great country and a vast realm in the territory of the Christians… They have a mighty king, and their numbers and armed forces are plentiful. Their king has two or three cities on the sea coast on this side, in the midst of Muslim territory, and he defends them from that direction. Every time the Muslims send someone there to conquer them, he sends someone to defend them from the other side. His armies are strong and powerful, and do not in any way feign flight in battle, but prefer death.’18 This contains elements of truth, such as the bravery in battle of the Frankish knights and the fact that armies were indeed sent to defend Frankish Outremer, namely in the form of Crusades. However, the reality of the crusader manpower in the Near East was that the only permanent military forces residing there were the Knights of the Temple and the Hospital, with their sergeants, city garrisons and turcopoles regiments providing some reinforcement. ‘Plentiful’ the armies of the West may have been, but large scale crusades were few and far between. Nevertheless, the Franks clearly held a formidable reputation in the Mongol psyche. When Friar Ascelin was received by Baiju in the late 1240s; ‘…they kept asking the Friars, cautiously and with much concern, whether the Franks had yet crossed the sea to Syria. For they had heard from their traders, they said, that many Franks were shortly crossing the sea to Syria… And they dread and fear them, according to the testimony of the Georgians and Armenians, above all other men in the world.’19 The Mongols were aware of the phenomenon of the crusade and the bravery of western knights in close combat and, regardless of the meagre Frankish Syrian garrison, feared that the Franks might be an unconquerable foe. From the missions of the 1240s, rulers in the west were aware of this and in the 1250s, Charles of Anjou stated that ‘if they [the Tartars] meet with resistance on the part of the Latins, we believe that the more they fear they will find, the sooner they will sheathe their bloodstained swords’.20 Jackson has stated that the Frankish leaders truly believed that ‘the Mongols Cited by Jackson, ‘Crisis in the Holy Land’, p. 496 Cited by Ibid, p. 497. 20 Cited by Ibid, p. 505. 18 19 James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips stood in such awe of Frankish power that a crusade would induce them to retreat’.21 If the Mongols truly feared the Franks, they could simply be used to wipe out the Mamluks and help to maintain the Crusader States, with advantageous terms being negotiated afterwards. Professional Mamluks and a Depleted Mongol Force It has also been argued that the Battle of Ayn Jalut represents a watershed moment in marking the end of Mongol military dominance in the Near East; the previously unbeatable steppe hordes had been defeated in open battle. John Masson Smith Jr. has argued that, although the Mongols were certainly at a disadvantage due to their reliance on horses and methods of nomadism in the unfavourable climates of Syria and Palestine, the Mamluks must be praised for their superior skill at arms and excellent leadership. Similarly, Reuven Amitai-Preiss has praised Qutuz and Baybars for their decisive leadership and bravery at a key moment in the battle. On the other hand, Schutz has criticized Smith for his ‘microscopic’ treatment of the Battle of Ayn Jalut as well as for his focus on the ‘material’ components of the conflict. Schutz, alongside others, has argued that the Mongol loss at Ayn Jalut was founded in the unusually small size of their forces and the logistical problems which they faced in leading a vast nomadic army through the territories of Syria and Palestine. The most influential factor in determining the Mongol defeat lies in the absence of the majority of the army which had originally entered Syria in 1259. Put simply, the Mamluk army faced but a fraction of Hulegu’s invasion force. In early 1260, Hulegu was informed of Mongke Khan’s death during the previous year. Apart from his obligation to immediately attend a quriltai in order that a new Khan might be elected, tension had grown between Hulegu and his brother Arigh Boke, leader of the Golden Horde. Mongke’s death resulted in Arigh Boke putting forward his claims to the Khanate, making it all the more urgent that Hulegu return to Qaraqorum to support his brother Qubilai. Their strong fraternal links are emphasized by Rashid al-Din. The problem of logistics has also been put forward by a number of scholars as a reason for Hulegu’s departure from Syria with much of his army. David Morgan has drawn parallels with the Mongol advance into Hungary, which Denis Sinor has explained was severely hampered by a lack of open pasture suitable for nomadism and an absence of open plains suited to cavalry warfare.22 If Hungary was disadvantageous to the Mongol way of life, Syria was even more so. Morgan cites a number of contemporary sources as evidence for the logistical problems with which the Mongols were confronted. In 1262, Hulegu quite plainly explained to Louis IX that his decision to withdraw from Syria was founded on the lack of pasture for his forces. 21 22 Cited by Jackson, ‘Crisis in the Holy Land’, p. 506. Denis Sinor, ‘The Mongols in the West’, Journal of Asian History, 33 (1999), pp. 1-44. James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips Concerning the earlier Mongol advance on Aleppo in 1244, Bar Hebraeus described how the Mongol army halted because ‘the horses of the army…were smitten in their legs by the dryness of the ground and the heat’. Morgan also cites the different topography which the Mongols encountered in their invasion of China. Huge walled cities and endless rice paddy fields and waterways, wholly unsuited to the Mongol art of war, led to the subjugation of China taking seventy years. The potential eruption of civil war with the Golden Horde and a dearth of pasture for horses meant that Hulegu could only leave some of his force in Syria to defend his conquests, keep an eye on the Frankish coastline and attempt to reduce the Assassin fortresses of northern Syria; we are told all of this by sources close to the Mongols. This meant that a force of around 60,000 Mongols (six tumen under six chief commanders) was reduced to one of 10,000; one tumen under Kitbogha. This force was not intended to lead an assault on Egypt and did not expect to face the full might of the Mamluks. Hulegu assured al-Nasir Yusuf of Aleppo that he would return to conquer Egypt in full force, at which point he would appoint him ruler of Syria.23 On the Mamluk side, Smith has calculated the Egyptian forces as having amounted to around 12,000. He cites Poliak and Ayalon in showing the nominal forces of the Mamluks to have been 24,000 horsemen based on 24 military districts, each supplying 1,000. In addition, defeated contingents of the Khwarazmians, Ayyubids and Kurds took refuge in Mamluk Egypt. Smith states that, in the fashion of Saladin, Qutuz must have left around half his forces in Egypt to guard against a crusade and any Bedouin raids. Al-Maqrizi describes how some were unwilling to march against the Mongols. Therefore, the 12,000 man strong army fielded by Saladin in the previous century was likely to have been emulated by Qutuz in his march to Palestine. Gibb has stated that, for Saladin, it was the largest he could field practically in a long distance march and sustained campaign, revealing how logistical considerations hampered the Mamluk side too.24 Thus, the Mamluk and Mongol forces at Ayn Jalut were probably similar in size, with the Egyptians perhaps possessing a slight advantage. Smith has emphasized the need to reject the legendary greatness of the Mongol steeds and stated that the ‘long, rapid march’ and ‘almost incredible journeys’, as recounted by some scholars, are simply speculative of the small steppe ponies.25 John of Plano Carpini advised against pursuing the Mongols, ‘so as not to tire the horses, for we [the crusaders] have not the great quantity which they All cited by David Morgan, ‘The Mongols in Syria, 1260-1300’, Crusade and Settlement: Papers read at the First Conference of the Society for the Study of Crusades and the Latin East and presented to R.C. Smail, ed. Raymond C. Smail and Peter Edbury (Cardiff: University College Cardiff Press, 1985), pp. 232-3. 24 Hamilton Gibb, ‘The Armies of Saladin’, Saladin: Studies in Islamic History (Beirut: Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 1974), pp. 310-11. 25 Owen Lattimore, ‘Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Conquests’, Scientific American, 8 (1963), p. 66; Henry Martin, The Rise of Chingis Khan and His Conquest of North China (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1950), p. 18. 23 James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips have’.26 Indeed, Mongols were often ordered to take up to six horses with them on campaign, allowing them to travel quickly and to efficiently carry out their charge, shoot and turn tactics on the battlefield. Smith argues that such a great quantity of horses and missiles made up for a lack of genuine weapon quality, armour and lack of heavy charger horses. Furthermore, the Mamluks were all professional warriors, chosen for their physical excellence and rigorously trained. Whilst the Mongols were certainly not untrained, as seen in both Juwaini’s and William of Rubruck’s accounts of the Mongol hunt, they were not the professional and consistently regimented fighting force which the Mamluks constituted. So, at Ayn Jalut, with the usual Mongol advantage of numbers being negated, ‘excellent amateurs’ faced ‘fine professionals’ in equal numbers; for Smith, the result was predictable.27 He maintains that, in a stationary shootout and relatively straightforward head-tohead confrontation, the Mongols could not hope to match the Mamluk skill with the bow. Whilst all of this may be true, the fact remains that the Mongol force was not fit for the purpose of a large open battle against an army as large as that assembled under Qutuz. Amitai-Preiss has further proposed that the Mongols had received faulty intelligence from Syrian informants concerning the size of the Mamluk force. Taking this into account, it is unlikely that the Mongols would have sought a confrontation with the Mamluks had they known the true size of the Mamluk army which approached Syria. Both the logistical demands of maintaining a large army of cavalry with numerous steeds in the field and the superiority of Mamluk weaponry would have caused hesitancy in the minds of the Mongol garrison in Syria. With the addition of at least some of the 50,000 troops which Hulegu withdrew from Syria, it is hard to see how the Mamluks would have succeeded in defeating the Mongols. In the event of the battle, the Mamluks were also assisted by the defection of AlAshraf Musa of Homs, whose forces largely made up the left of the Mongol formation. Furthermore, although the desire on the part of the Mamluk writers to depict Qutuz as a fearless mujahideen must be taken into account, it seems that the Mamluk general committed his forces to a full frontal assault at the perfect moment in the battle. Much in the fashion of Richard Coeur de Lion at Arsuf, Qutuz identified a ‘do or die’ opportunity and led the charge. Full engagement at close quarters was keenly avoided by the Mongols in favour of their ‘provoke and ambush’ tactics. The Battle of Ayn Jalut certainly highlighted this Achilles’ heel in the Mongol art of war. The fact that Ayn Jalut was not decisive in the sense of establishing absolute Mamluk military superiority over the Mongols is evident in the confrontations of the following decades. In 1299, the Ilkhan Ghazan led an invasion of Syria and met a Mamluk force at Homs. The Mongols outnumbered Cited by Morgan, ‘The Mongols in Syria’, p. 233. John Masson Smith Jr, ‘Ayn Jalut: Mamluk Success or Mongol Failure?’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 44 (1984) , p. 326. 26 27 James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips the Mamluks, and even when the Mongols were in disarray, their vast numbers allowed them to achieve victory. Militarily, Ayn Jalut was ‘decisive’ in the sense that the Mongol army was almost totally defeated and pursued from the battlefield. However, whenever the Mongols were able to muster a full strength invasion force, they were nigh-unbeatable in the field. The Mongol Advance Halted? It might be assumed that the crushing Mongol defeat at Ayn Jalut categorically ended western Mongol expansion as well as overarching imperial sentiments. However, as has already been discussed, internal strife within the Mongol Empire and the subsequent lack of direction and manpower to commit to a westward advance were more important than the outcome of this one battle. As Morgan has stated, it did mark the immediate end to Mongol dominance in the region but the following decades would show how Ayn Jalut did not ‘in any real sense halt the Mongol advance’.28 Similarly, it might be posited that the defeat at Ayn Jalut was detrimental to the Mongol psyche and to their self-assured sense of invincibility. How could such a defeat befall the descendants of Chinggis Khan, whose mandate it was to rule the entire world? In reality, the Mongols never had such doubts and writers such as Rashid al-Din do not reflect on the Battle of Ayn Jalut in much detail, further demonstrating the peripheral place of the incident in the Mongol psyche. Even with the internal division in the Mongol Empire, the Mongol imperial ideology persisted. In 1269, Abaqa wrote to Baibars; ‘When the King Abaqa set out from the East, he conquered all the world. Whoever opposed him was killed. If you go up to the sky or down into the ground, you will not be saved from us. The best policy is that you will make peace between us. You are a Mamluk who was bought in Siwas. How do you rebel against the kings of the earth?’29 Such self-assuredness is further demonstrated in that Mongol coinage continued to bear the inscriptions ‘Lord of the World’ and ‘Ruler of the Necks of the Nations’. Amitai-Preiss has contended that this ‘vestigial expansionist ideology’ and a desire for revenge after the losses at Ayn Jalut and Homs in 1260, combined to maintain the imperial dream of expansion into Syria and Egypt.30 The continued existence of a Mamluk state which openly rejected the Ilkhan right to rule was an affront to the Mongols which could not be tolerated. Further fuelling the desire to expand westward was 28 David Morgan, The Mongols (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), p. 138. Cited by Reuven Amitai-Preiss, Mongols and Mamluks: the Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260-1281 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 231. 30 Ibid, p. 233. 29 James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips the fact that the Ilkhans of Persia could not realistically advance in any other direction. Uneasy treaties were maintained with Mongol neighbours to the north and east, whilst southern advances into India had revealed a climate and topography even less hospitable through which to lead an invasion than that of Syria. Interestingly, Charles Halperin has noted how earlier decisions made by the Mongols concerning the displacement of the Kipchak peoples of the northern steppes eventually proved decisive in determining the outcome of the Battle of Ayn Jalut. Both Qutuz and Baybars were Kipchaks themselves, with the former being a refugee from Khwarazm. Amitai-Preiss has noted how Baybars’ later successes were dependent on the influx of Mamluks from territory under the control of the Golden Horde (enemies of the Persian Ilkhans). Prior to Ayn Jalut, when the Mongols had defeated the Kipchaqs, Nuwairi relates how many of them were sold to the Ayyubid rulers of Syria where they were given lofty military positions, whilst others were taken to Cairo and trained as part of the Mamluk forces. It is therefore ironic how the mass displacement of the Kipchak people by the Mongols helped to create the professional army which would defeat them at Ayn Jalut and frustrate their attempts to conquer Syria throughout the following decades. Furthermore, Halperin demonstrates how the Mongol insistence upon the Kipchaks being their own slaves combined with the compliance of the Golden Horde in supplying Mamluk manpower served to inflame the MamlukIlkhan conflict; the Mongols encountering a heavily Kipchak Mamluk power ‘must have been…[like] waving multiple red flags at an already enraged bull’.31 Indeed, the Ilkhan Abaqa’s threat to Baybars seen above evidences what he sees as an affront in the defiance of a mere Kipchak slave; ‘You are a Mamluk who was bought in Siwas. How do you rebel against the kings of the earth?’ Conclusion Representing the first major defeat of the Mongols in the near east, Grousset et al. were able to present the Battle of Ayn Jalut as the destruction of the myth of Mongol invincibility and as the halting of the Mongol advance; a truly decisive engagement in the history of the Near East. However, it is clear that Ayn Jalut’s importance has been overstated in these aspects. Hulegu had led a devastating decade long campaign through Persia, during which he had taken a number of previously unassailable Assassin strongholds and sacked Baghdad, the most important city in the Islamic world. This was accomplished in the space of just two weeks, which was an incredible and ruthless feat. The logistical problems which confronted the nomadic Mongols upon their arrival in Syria have been explored in detail and, with fraternal obligations also influencing his decision, Charles Halperin, ‘The Kipchak Connection: The Ilkhans, the Mamluks and Ayn Jalut’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 63 (2000), p. 241. 31 James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips Hulegu made a sound decision to leave a garrison force of just one tumen to guard his conquests. A militarily impotent Frankish coastline, three clients states (the Kingdom of Armenia, the Principality of Antioch and the Sultanate of Rum) and a chronically unstable Sultanate in Cairo presented no obvious threats to Mongol rule. Smith’s study offers a valuable insight into the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, making it clear that with numbers being equal, the highly regimented and professionalised Mamluks would come out on top. Some ideological factors can also be considered as giving the Mamluks the edge they needed over the Mongols. The Mamluks had no choice but to win at Ayn Jalut; a defeat would surely have resulted in a relentless pursuit by the Mongols and the loss of most of their manpower. Having mustered the full might of Egypt, as well as refugees from Khawarazm and Syria, and invoking the cause of holy war, a loss for Qutuz would have been truly devastating for not only the Mamluk psyche, but for the Islamic world. If Qutuz and the Mamluks had not succeeded at Ayn Jalut, who would have stood as a mujihadeen, capable of liberating the Muslims of Iran and avenging the sack of Baghdad? With such an outcome, Ayn Jalut would have been decisive indeed. James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips Bibliography Aigle, Denise, ‘The Letters of Eljigidei, Hulegu, and Abaqa: Mongol Overtures or Christian Ventriloquism’, Inner Asia, 7 (2005), pp. 143-162 Amitai-Preiss, Reuven, Mongols and Mamluks: the Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260-1281 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) Amitai-Preiss, Reuven, ‘Mongol Raids into Palestine (A.D. 1260 and 1300)’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 119 (1987), pp. 236-255 Barber, Malcolm and Bate, Keith, ed. and trans. 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The Genesis of a Non-Event’, The English Historical Review, 94 (1979), pp. 805-819 James Corbyn, Royal Holloway University of London – Crusader Studies MA – 2015 Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Phillips Schutz, Edmond, ‘The Decisive Motives of Tartar Failure in the Ilkhanid-Mamluk Fights in the Holy Land’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientarium Hungaricae, 45 (1991), pp. 3-22 Sinor, Denis, ‘The Mongols in the West’, Journal of Asian History, 33 (1999), pp. 1-44 Smith Jr, John Masson, ‘Ayn Jalut: Mamluk Success or Mongol Failure?’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 44 (1984), pp. 307-345 Thorau, Paul, ‘The Battle of Ayn Jalut: A Re-examination’, Crusade and Settlement: Papers read at the First Conference of the Society for the Study of Crusades and the Latin East and presented to R.C. Smail, ed. Raymond C. Smail and Peter Edbury (Cardiff: University College Cardiff Press, 1985), pp. 236-241